The new Brazilian minister of Development, Industry and Foreign Trade, Miguel Jorge, said that from now on the ministry will "pay much more attention" to the domestic and foreign markets. "That was the instruction I received from president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, and I will follow it," Jorge said.
Miguel Jorge stated that, for the time being, he is not considering changing his team, since he is still in the process of leaving his previous position in order to become the head of the Ministry. The minister took office this Thursday, March 29, in the Brazilian capital Brasília.
Jorge, a businessman who left the executive vice-presidency for Human Resources and Legal and Corporate Affairs at bank Santander Banespa, has a background as a journalist.
He started his career in 1963, in the Jornal do Brasil newspaper branch in the southeastern Brazilian state of São Paulo. In 1966, he was part of the team that founded the Jornal da Tarde newspaper, where he worked in several positions, from general reporter to newsroom undersecretary.
He was head of the newsroom at O Estado de S. Paulo newspaper from 1977 to 1987, when he left to work in Autolatina, a joint venture between Volkswagen and Ford, in which he was the vice-president for Corporate Affairs and Human Resources.
After the two companies parted, he became vice-president for Legal Affairs, Human Resources and Corporate Affairs at Volkswagen, a position he occupied until January 2001, when he started working for Santander Banespa.
Miguel Jorge is also a member of the Advisory board at O Estado de S. Paulo. He was a Professor of Journalism at the School of Communication of Universidade Paulista, and is a regular contributor with articles for various press vehicles.
British Agreement
The Brazilian minister of Agriculture, Reinhold Stephanes, participated in the signing ceremony for a Memorandum or Understanding (MoU) between the Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation (Embrapa) and the Rothamsted Research Center, from the United Kingdom.
The five-year long MoU provides for information exchange between Brazilian and British scientists in fields such as chemical ecology, climate changes and soil. The memorandum was signed by the director of Embrapa, Sílvio Crestana, and the scientific advisor for the United Kingdom, David King, in the minister's office.
